Organized Crime

Organized Crime refers to a category of hackers that may be transnational, national, or local in geography.  They operate like a centralized enterprise but are run by criminals who engage in illegal activity. Their most common motivation for hacking is monetary gain. These organizations regularly force people to pay them money through elaborate ransomware campaigns and activities. 

Related Terms: Script Kiddie, Nation States, Hacktivists, Insiders

Source: Macionis, Gerber, John, Linda (2010). Sociology 7th Canadian Ed. Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Canada Inc. p. 206

What does this mean for SMB’s?

The Verizon Data Breach Report year after years details how SMB’s with 11 to 99 employees are targeted by hacker attacks 15 times more often than smaller and larger businesses.  The reasons given for why this size SMB are attacked more often are many including:

1. They spend less on Cybersecurity protections than larger companies;
2. They rarely have someone directly responsible for cybersecurity;
3. They have enough money to be a financially beneficial target;
4. Their employees do not have sufficient cybersecurity skills;
5. They do not train their employees on spotting and avoiding common hacker attacks;
6. They can be a back-door into a larger organization that is otherwise difficult to penetrate.

Reasons number three (3) is why most SMB owners need to know that they are squarely in the cross-hairs of organized crime who can and do attack regularly to extract a monetary payment in bitcoins through ransomware attacks.

Read this blog article on the Top 10 Cybersecurity Protections every SMB should implement to protect themselves from being hacked.

To learn more about this topic, watch this short video: